Cannonball Run at the Galle Face Hotel

French Ambassador to Sri Lanka Jean-Marin Schuh and German Ambassador Juergen Morhard took part in the Cannonball run celebrated by Colombo’s 150-year-old Galle Face Hotel, on March 18. The Cannonball run is an annual tradition celebrated on the Galle Face Green, to commemorate the extraordinary incident of a cannonball misfired by a member of the British Artillery in 1845.

The 30-pound cannonball, misfired during a practice session around the southern ramparts of the Colombo Fort, came crashing through the roof of the now Galle Face Hotel, leaving a heavy dent on the drawing room floor and came to rest under a chair. The cannonball is at present preserved in the museum located in the South Wing of the hotel.

In memory of this “infamous incident” an annual run has been held over the years, starting off at the cannon on the Fort end of the Green and ending at the cannonball in the hotel. Members of the diplomatic community, over the years who have run have included the likes of the American Ambassador Robert O’ Blake and the British High Commissioner Peter Hayes (2008), Maldivian Ambassador Ali Hussein Didi and Russian Ambassador Vladimir P. Mikhaylov (2010), French Ambassador Christine Robichon and Norwegian Ambassador Hilde Haraldstad (2011), Canadian High Commissioner Bruce Levy and British High Commissioner John Rankin (2012) to name a few.